This semester we welcome home what are to some new faces, but to most, old friends. Senior Oona Nelson, seventh grader Mateo Sherwood and his eighth grade brother Lucas Sherwood have returned to Seabury. Where were they, though?

“I was at this mountain biking school called World Class Academy,” says Nelson. “We traveled to…Canada and Spain.” Nelson has been a star athlete since she walked into Seabury, but one sport Nelson never got to embrace as much while at Seabury was mountain biking––despite her three years of experience outside of school.

 While on her trip for 13 weeks,  Nelson got to travel to Whistler, Canada and see “Whistler Bike Park…the most famous bike park in the world,” as well as “a famous dirt biking park called La Poma…in the region of Catalonia,” she says. “I got to see a lot of professionals at La Poma and Whistler,” Nelson explains. “I was still learning to jump” which was perfect because, “in Canada we mostly focused on downhill and dirt jumping, and then when we were in Spain, it was a lot more endurance trails but also some really good dirt jumping.” 

There were many other adventures separate from biking for Nelson during her travels. “We went into Barcelona and just explored the city and went to some famous places like Casa de la Familia and the Salvador Dali Museum,” says Nelson. “I had some really good sandwiches…and I tried a lot of new cheese,” she says when asked about new experiences. Sadly, most of Nelson’s European luxury treats did not make it home. Nelson tried to bring home some food for her family, “but then customs took them away.” Luckily, Nelson “hid some really good sausage in [her] computer case.” 

Even with all that fun, Nelson still had to go to school while away. “It was a school with high-schoolers my age. There were about 12 of us in total,” she says. “We did school in the mornings, so like from 8:00am to 2:00pm we did school, and then in the afternoons, we would ride.” When asked what she missed most about Seabury, Nelson admitted, “I really missed the class discussions oddly enough…the education there was decent, but Seabury obviously surpasses it.”

Now that Nelson is back, she says she “miss[es] the biking, but [she] was really homesick … I got to see some super cool places and I got to ride some super famous places,  places I’ve seen on social media…It was just cool to be with people with similar interests as me.”

Nelson was not the only student missing the first semester of this school year. Lucas and Mateo Sherwood were visiting family and attending school in Columbia for the first semester.

The Sherwoods are no foreigners to the country of Columbia. Mateo explains, “My mom’s side [of the family] is from Columbia.” The brothers have traveled to the South American country many times. “We usually go during summer break,” says Mateo.

“Yeah we’ve been like 12 times,” Lucas adds.

This, however, was both boys’ first time attending school in Bucaramanga. They had to adjust to “about 700 kids,” Mateo says. The brothers also had a brand new schedule to adhere to. “We start at 6:30am in the morning and we end at 2:30pm,” he says. “It was hard, because we had to wake up at 5:30am, and then we would catch a bus and then it would take like half an hour to drive to get to school,” he explains.

As far as the actual schooling went, “I think it was stricter there, the teachers had a different teaching style…I kinda like how the teachers help me more here; teachers [here] are definitely more involved,” says Lucas. 

 “School [here] is a lot harder than [school] in Columbia,” says Mateo. In school they only spoke Spanish. According to Mateo, in math class, “the vocabulary can be a little bit tricky, because you have to know the definitions in a whole other language. So you sometimes have to do twice the work.”

Outside of school was an adventure as well. “There were a lot of birds…Columbia has the most species of birds in the world,” says Lucas.

Mateo says, “We went to a lot of fairs…they would have food from different places in Columbia, and they would have different [kinds of] art and paintings.” When asked about fun things they did outside of school, it was a quick answer. “I got to spend time with my family too,” says Mateo.

 “We go all over the country to visit our family,” says Lucas.

Even with all of their fun, the Sherwoods can confidently say that they’re happy to be home. “It was really exciting getting back, especially to school…The first day I walked in I saw so many new faces,” Lucas says.